Ten goals in the Eredivisie secured Antony a winners' medal. Ten goals in the Premier League barely scraped sixth for Bruno Fernandes.
There is not an exact measurement between the different levels in Dutch and English football but the chasm is roughly the size of the Grand Canyon.
Manchester United wanted to send Amad to Feyenoord to develop until injury scotched that. Eventually, Amad headed north of the border and he did not cut it in the Scottish Premiership.
Also read: United hold talks for Dest
Last week, Rangers eliminated PSV Eindhoven from the Champions League to qualify for the group stage. The Netherlands national team failed to qualify for two of the last three major tournaments.
Liverpool's sole signing from a Dutch club under Jurgen Klopp remains Sepp van den Berg and Angelino is the only Eredivisie recruit Manchester City have made during their 14 years post-takeover.
Dutch clubs continue to be a halfway house for South American and European prodigies. Jaap Stam and Ruud van Nistelrooy are United greats and Ji-sung Park, also acquired from PSV, a cult figure.
Those three have to be discounted in the age of United AD (after dominance). Ferguson also milked the last ounce of world-class football from Edwin van der Sar and Robin van Persie.
When United eventually issue a statement confirming Antony is now their player, it will be accompanied by quotes from the Brazilian and football director John Murtough, as though he is the mastermind behind raiding the Dutch market.
You do not have to be Poirot to detect Erik ten Hag's fingerprints all over United's business. A club whose executive vice-chairman derided the signing of Dutchman Daley Blind and where two of his compatriots left after 18 months have ripped up that recruitment playbook.
Ajax could bank €165million from the sales of Antony and Lisandro Martinez, a figure sources in the Netherlands find extraordinary, as well as exorbitant. Many managers are still sticklers for familiarity and Ten Hag was in the same vicinity as four of his signings when Ajax coach last season.
United had to back Ten Hag, albeit not as blindly as to the extent the scouting department appears to have been as dormant as Rip van Winkle. United sources insisted Antony was "high on the scouting radar" prior to Ten Hag's appointment.
United invested more than £100million in right-sided forwards in the last two summers and, until January, had Mason Greenwood starting there. Antony was on an upward curve at Ajax and debuted for Brazil last year but he was not in demand outside United.
With Greenwood indefinitely unavailable, Amad lightweight and Tahith Chong expected to depart, United needed a left-footed forward to balance a lopsided attack. Ten Hag developed Antony into a €100m player and his youthful profile is aligned with United's prime targets in recent years.
Ten Hag protested during pre-season he would rather sign English players. An £85.5m bid would not have got United far with the left-footed Bukayo Saka, wedded to Arsenal, but might have with Jarrod Bowen, the 26-year-old West Ham winger. It is difficult to argue Bowen would have been a sounder investment than Antony, 22.
Antony is holed up in The Lowry hotel and could make his debut against Arsenal, likely to arrive at Old Trafford with a 100 per cent record on Sunday. He could do with a similar impact to the last Premier League debutant for United up front against Arsenal, Marcus Rashford.
United remain curiously reluctant to dip into the Bundesliga market, with Bastian Schweinsteiger still the only German to have played for the club. German football has served Liverpool well in transfer windows and the Bundesliga is the only other major European league that remotely resembles the intensity of the Premier League.
Making a beeline for Serge Gnabry would have been advisable before his contract extension at Bayern Munich and Bayer Leverkusen, where Son Heung-min spent two years, have a whizzkid in Florian Wirtz. Ralf Rangnick recommended three RB Leipzig players to United and they barely glanced at any of them.
Nepotism is not as rife at United as it was at Barcelona during Louis van Gaal's first stint as coach. Frank de Boer, Ronald de Boer, Patrick Kluivert, Boudewijn Zenden, Phillip Cocu, Michael Reiziger, Ruud Hesp and Winston Bogard arrived to turn the blaugrana orange.
That United have eyed Memphis Depay and Sergino Dest, both unwanted at Barcelona, is inevitable. One is Dutch and worked with Ten Hag at PSV and the other is Dutch-born and played under Ten Hag for Ajax. Casemiro is very much the exception to the norm.
And United need Antony to be exceptional.
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